2025 Private School Costs (just a rant)

[sherbsy]

Just a rant ladies as I wanted to get something off my chest...

My DH and I were lucky enough to go to private schools as kids. These schools weren't exactly posh, they were just former grammar schools (i.e. academic student factories) that converted in the 70s to private schools because the Labour government at the time told them to.

I know it's a privilege to go, there's a choice involved, a compromise etc. Neither of us ever went on holiday as kids or had many luxuries and our parents endured a lot to be able to afford it. I'm grateful for all they did and I wanted to do the same for my children.

But despite having good jobs...we just can't.

My rant is just at the excessive cost of it all in 2024. We both earn well and it's still beyond our means. With VAT being added in January, I'm not even sure it's worth it anymore.

When I left in 2000, it cost our parents ~£6,500 for a year. Inflation adjusted, that's about £12,000 in today's money. By no means cheap but both the schools we went to are now charging ~£22,000 per child, per year. That's before you factor in uniform, lunches, trips, exam costs etc.

Finding £44,000+ after tax every year with today's marginal tax rates, mortgage costs, food costs, energy costs etc just isn't possible for us...and I'd surprised many people can find it.

I know it's a middle-class rant, I know there's privilege involved but can anyone else empathise with us? It just feels like the Labour government have twice pulled the ladder away from capable kids (once in the 70s and now in 2024), offering it only to the rich ones.

Could you not have moved to a grammar area if you feel it's unfair that Labour got rid of them in some areas in the 70s?
I live in Surrey now which has always been Tory, but it has no grammar schools. I guess they could have kept the grammars like Kent if they wanted to.
I find it much more concerning that the Tories have trashed state education over the last 14 years, as well as other public services.
It doesn't sound like the rise in private fees is all down to VAT from the figures you've given.

You can't blame it all on VAT - private school fees have been seeing huge increases year on year for many years, and yet people just stumped up the cash.

Put the £44K to a mortgage on a house in a good catchment area, like many other parents.

Also - wasn't it Thatcher that closed the grammar schools?

In real terms the cost of private schooling (at the very same school) is now 84% more expensive, at a time when the tax system takes far more!

I don’t empathise as such as I didn’t go
private and had no interest in private school for my own kids. But I agree it’s comparatively much more expensive now. I know far fewer people who /go send their kids private than when I was a kid. And that’s when the parents now will on the face of it have better jobs/more money.

Oh I agree, it's more that VAT is the final nail in the coffin and takes the cost beyond all possible level of achievement.

Also - wasn't it Thatcher that closed the grammar schools?

Yes - Thatcher was the Education Secretary that closed / merged the most grammar schools.

I think the private schools have really messed this up by getting into an arms race competing with other schools with more and more expansion and development, and then having to hike up their prices to pay for it. Now they have created schools that only the very rich can afford. As you say, the additional VAT is just the icing on the cake.

Our dcs are at a central London prep and I'd estimate that most families there are on over £250k annual income, some of them much more (based on profession - finance, law, tech, sales). So it depends on what the numbers are when you say you are earning well. Fees at our school will be about £23k a year once VAT is added, it will be far higher at senior school. For us we have taught ourselves about investing so we have built up enough reserves to comfortably afford school fees, rather than just relying on income. DH and I are from low income backgrounds and we've not had help from family or inheritance, we have just learned how to make our money work hard for us.

I think there are plenty of excellent state schools though and if you earn enough to be able to get a mortgage, then your kids have the chance to attend some good schools as long as you move close enough or prep for grammar entrance (or if you are religious that is another well-known route to getting into a top school).

That wasn't an option we chose because we liked the flexibility of living where we liked (there are no grammar schools where we live, and all the top comps are in politically Conservative areas), and we aren't at all religious and could never convince anyone that we are.

Great job!

‘During the 1950s and 1960s, it was said, mainly by Labour politicians and egalitarian educationalists, that the selective education system reinforced class division and middle-class privilege.

In 1965, the government ordered local education authorities to start phasing out grammar schools and secondary moderns, and replace them with a comprehensive system.

The quickest changes were made in Labour-controlled areas, while strongly Conservative counties moved slowly or not at all.’ BBC

Labour removing upward social mobility again. Nothing changes.

Loads of things are more expensive. Inflation doesn't apply uniformly across all expenditure types.

It is what it is.

Loads of people can't afford luxuries.

Look at the rise in housing costs. Energy bills. Food.

Weird to blame Labour when the rises thus far are entirely due to the schools themselves.

I don't empathise, no.

My parents couldn't afford private education for either me or my brother.

There are a lot of good state schools out there.

Private schools are not the only way to do well in the world.

I went to Cambridge. I met many many people there from state schools.

Private school fees going up really is not anyone "pulling up the ladder".

My parents sent all 4 of us private but it’s not something that I could consider for my kids. I guess part of it is wages not growing as fast as CoL for decades.

Expenses for schools have increased since I attended secondary in the 90s - national insurance, energy etc so I wouldn’t expect fees to only have increased as much as inflation- especially if it’s the sort of school where the kids leave with stellar academic results so competition is fierce.

Perhaps it’s more common these days for grandparents to pay fees ?

OP you're much younger than me - when I started in 1982 it was £400 a term for a GDST school!!

I was privately educated for 5 years. DH was state educated all the way through. Our DC were independently educated from 3-18 but we couldn't afford to make that choice now.

To be honest I think the state primary near us is fine and if we'd been more organised we could have moved into grammar catchment or worked out where the decent comps were.

Do I feel my grandchildren will miss out if they can't be privately educated?

Not really - if the kids have the ability and come from a supportive background? Clearly there are things they will miss like the amazing facilities and a few really exceptional teachers - but generally I think they'll be ok....

ds never once appreciated or even used the amazing sports or drama facilities anyway!

I had a terrible 70s state school experience and then sent both my DC to private school. They are happy, confident, successful adults. But if I had to do it again I would relocate to an area with outstanding state schools. I would spend the £400k we spent on education on housing and holidays. Unfortunately we don't have any of those great state schools where we live in the Midlands. It's a scandal that large parts of this country don't have access to good state education.

For those saying "there are plenty of great state schools" surely that depends entirely on the area and often the demographic? And how are we defining how great these schools are? In our town there is one decent state high school with a very strict, ever decreasing catchment. The other high schools are far from "great".

OP yes private education is becoming unaffordable now for parents of a certain level of income that once upon a time could have afforded it. That's been happening for a while but the Vat is the last straw.

There are 2 scandals here:

1. That private schools are even a thing and needed or wanted as state school provision is so wildly variable or terrible, depending on where you live
2. That private school fees have increased way beyond inflation in the past 5 years

Our DC all went through private schools but the fees since they left have increased dramatically, even before you factor in the 20% VAT increase.

I am relieved that we're no longer paying school fees. I worked out recently that we paid over £300k in total for all children (secondary only), and I can't even start doing the maths on what we had to earn to pay that from taxed income. It's a lot though.

The majority of those schools, mine included were never in state control - they fell under a system called Direct Grant, most of the Direct Grant schools were already independent or church controlled, when tripartite was introduced some counties did not build new grammars, instead existing independent schools, struggling after ww2 would be funded partly by the DFE and agree to take a percentage of their roll (often 1/3) from the LA via 11+ filling the grammar school roll. These schools got new building put up by the DFE, my school got a bloody ugly, asbestos ridden Gym, Science Block and new boarding house (all now gone!)

When tripartite was ended the writing was on the wall for Direct Grant, which labour pulled out of, the Direct Grant schools were then given the options of carrying on as independents, which is what they still were, being acquired by the LA or closing down.

The Direct Grant info is interesting - is this effectively what academisation is trying to bring back?

There are many great state schools, but not enough as I think it's uncontroversial that there are also many "not great" state schools. Crucially, there are fewer places at great state schools than children whose parents want that level of educational provision. If you can maneuver your child into a desirable school at a reasonable cost (in either money or time) by moving close to one, by demonstrating religion fervor, or by passing some exam (grammar or some specialism like dance), then you might think there are plenty of great state schools. If you can't, then you might not.

There's no doubt that that private school fees have risen as a percentage of average income over the last couple of generations. Again, crucially, they have also risen as a percentage of 90th-percentile income. It's always been a discretionary expense but it now requires much more difficult trade-offs than it did in the past. Relative prices change and people adjust by changing what they spend their money on. So more parents who want a "sufficient" level of educational provision will choose, instead of spending money on private school fees, to spend money and/or time on moving house (or even towns), attending church, or preparing for specialist exams.

I went to a grammar school in the 80s and girls from working class backgrounds tended to go into hairdressing etc. It was only really middle class girls who went to uni.
The 80% who got into secondary moderns had even less chance of getting into uni.
Nowadays paid for tutoring helps a lot of kids to get into grammar school which doesn't do much for social mobility either.
I'm not sure why you'd think Comprehensives stop social mobility. They don't. They just don't write 80% off at age 11 and require tutoring to get in.
OP if you are prepared to say what county you live in, perhaps people might be able to reassure you about the local schools. Have you looked at the destinations of the kids at 16 or 18?

Also, I'm not sure what difference it makes if Tory areas turned comprehensive slowly or quickly?

Everything is less affordable, isn't it? It's growing social inequality. Housing, food, everything.

Wealth is being concentrated at the very top. When you went to school it was concentrated at the top and you were in that larger group.

So many hardworking parents never able to go private stuck with state. Hard to feel thar sorry tbh.

Margaret Thatcher was the Secretary of State who closed the most grammar schools, so you can hardly blame Labour for that one!

Yes, prices have gone up-I think we all under the CoL crisis.